Chef Matt Selby concocted a five-course meal to celebrate the end of Colorado’s peach season, each dish featuring the fruit somewhere within. The dinner begins, however, with a tasting of bourbon from Garrison Brothers Distillery, out of Hye, Texas.

Distillery co-founder Charlie Garrison will be on-hand to guide the tasting and chat about the Brothers’ history and techniques. A Garrison Brothers cocktail accompanies the amuse bouche course, too.

For community and backyard gardeners across Denver, it’s harvest season, and the pounds of produce are accumulating fast. And increasingly, thanks to a young-but-growing initiative called Produce for Pantries, the vegetable bounty isn’t limited to the kitchens of those who do the gardening.

About 40 gardeners in and around the city have registered with Produce for Pantries, which has about 15 official partner organizations, to donate part of their harvest to area food pantries and hunger relief organizations.

Last night, the Denver City Council voted to allow city residents to sell fresh, homegrown produce from home. So if your neighbors have a thriving garden, and get the appropriate ($20) permit, you can buy some kale or heirloom tomatoes from right next door. Talk about local food — and a local economy.

That’s the idea behind the ordinance, which is an amendment to the Denver Zoning Code. To drive that point home, Mayor Michael Hancock and amendment sponsor Councilwoman Robin Kniech today will visit a Northwest Denver resident who plans to take advantage of the change. Amendment supporters are hopeful that it will most directly benefit low-income and possibly refugee communities; refugee communities in particular often have agrarian roots, and many in Denver are already active gardeners.

A salad of beets, arugula and goat cheese will be among the types of food Root Down will serve on its Raw Food Nights. (Photo courtesy Root Down.)

Root Down restaurant at 600 W. 33rd Ave. is hosting a Raw Food Night on the first Tuesday of every month, and the next one will be held July 1.

Some info: By definition, raw food has not been heated to more than 118 degrees. This leaves the natural enzymes and nutrients intact so their bio-availability to the human body is maxed out. With a menu created by Root Down chef Daniel Asher and Sarah Phillips, his sous chef, the dinners are a chance for Denver diners to walk on the raw side.

This month, Denver Botanic Gardens stepped up its game in its ongoing effort to improve access to healthy food around the city. Far from its flagship site on York Street, the Gardens operates a community farm at its Chatfield location in Littleton.

Since 2010, produce grown there has been sold to the community, through a Community Supported Agriculture program, and donated to food banks and homeless shelters. And, as of this month, the Botanic Gardens is also selling some of it to the public, in Denver’s food deserts — neighborhoods that do not have ready or abundant access to fresh foods.

The farm stand debuted on the first Friday in June near Denver Human Services, in the Sun Valley neighborhood behind Sports Authority Field, and will continue to operate there on the first two Fridays of every month through October.

And just a few days ago, it set up shop at its second location downtown, on the 16th Street Mall between Champa and Curtis Streets, where it will operate for the second two Fridays of the month. (While the mall may host plenty of restaurants that will sell you a salad, finding fresh produce to take home is another story.)

Ramps, seen here in their untrimmed version, are a type of wild leek that make wonderful dishes, such as creamed ramps. (Denver Post photo by Cyrus McCrimmon)

Ramps, also known as wild leeks, are a harbinger of spring in certain parts of the country, including the Southern Appalachians and the band of rain-blessed forests running from the Northeast to Pacific Northwest.

Heat the oil in a large nonstick skillet. Add the ramps and sauté for about 5 minutes, until they are wilted and tender. You will notice them filling with air and then deflating. It’s okay. Be sure to keep moving the ramps around so they don’t scorch.

Place the ramps in a food processor with the pignoli nuts, chicken stock, and salt. Pulse to blend to a rough puree. The ramps will be quite loose and wet.

Butter a baking pan—I used a 9-inch copper pan—and pour in the ramps mixture. Gently toss in the cheese and swirl in the heavy cream. Sprinkle breadcrumbs over the top and bake for 10 minutes, until the breadcrumbs are golden brown and the vegetable is piping hot.

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In the wake of the Sept. 18 Food cover on winter greens, I received a nice email from Jan Holland-Beachley, a reader who is a big fan of all things leafy and edible. She passed along some ideas for preparing a few greens, which I’m passing along to you. They sound delicious.

William,

I was glad to see your article on how to use the scrumptious winter greens. I think that one of the biggest impediments to people buying those greens for their families to enjoy is that people don’t know a simple way of preparing them. I find that even the grocery clerks will ask me how do you prepare/cook them?

For those of us who want to eat healthy, but don’t have time or inclination to use a recipe to prepare greens on a regular basis during the school/work week, we look for simple suggestions. Here’s mine:

Using either bok choy or napa cabbage ( both of which the kids call “chinese cabbage”), we cut a large head of greens into 1-2 inch ribbons starting at the top. We wash the greens (this provides some additional moisture to that already present in the greens for cooking) , and then place them in a deep skillet with a cover with 1-2 teaspoons of heated canola oil. It takes only 15 mins minutes to wilt and cook the napa cabbage, but 5-10 mins longer for the bok choy because the stems are thicker. We season with garlic salt and black pepper to taste while cooking, and serve while hot.Read more…

Biting into a slice of juicy melon is a great way to start a summer day, but when you’re ready to be a little more adventurous, there are countless ways to prepare cantaloupe. A handful of local chefs and restaurants were asked by the Rocky Ford Growers Association to tap their creativity and share samples on a recent lunch hour with passersby on Denver’s 16th Street Mall as well as some judges.

The ringer at the judge’s table was Michael Long, a chef, restaurateur and host of The Main Course on KEZW 1430 on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to noon. Avid home cooks Kristen Kidd and I joined in. We sampled shrimp poboys with cantaloupe relish from J.P. Rouse of Aloft Hotel in Broomfield, cantaloupe “carpaccio” from Gregory Sever of the University of Denver, and an artful assemblage of melon, cheese and greens from Garren Teich and Jonas Halstead of Restaurant 1515.

It was a hard contest to judge, but the best recipes, from Chris Meier, executive chef at Willie G’s Seafood & Steaks at 15th & Lawrence, were for a pork tenderloin with cantaloupe “molasses” and “kimchee” and a sea scallop with cantaloupe relish and “caviar.” (We swear Meiers’ win had nothing to do with the delicious Cantaloupe Fizz Culinary Cocktail that accompanied his dishes).